So this is what comic-book movies are meant to be like. Guardians of the Galaxy, directed by James Gunn from a script co-written with Nicole Perlman, is the best Marvel Studios blockbuster yet – light years ahead of the others for sheer imagination, comic swagger and visual pop. It's a richly coloured space opera full of freaky aliens and swirling cosmic backdrops, and a parody that works better than most examples of the genre played straight.

It is a film for everybody, but a few groups in particular: Generation X nostalgia tragics, cosplay enthusiasts who now have a whole new set of wardrobe choices, and children who can outrage their teachers with drawings of the more violent scenes.

Gunn, who got his start with the Z-grade Troma studio, is a kind of Dr Frankenstein of film: he specialises in stitching bits of cultural flotsam together and bringing them back to life. Here he borrows frankly and freely from Star Wars, as well as Raiders of the Lost Ark and other '80s classics, adding a large dose of the sick-and-twisted science-fiction humour familiar from Futurama or 2000 AD.

It's like a mixtape of all your old favourites, and Gunn even has the cheek to make the comparison explicit. Having been kidnapped by space pirates as a child, the human hero Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) treasures his handful of Earth possessions, especially his Sony Walkman. When we first meet him as an adult, he is leaping across the surface of a rocky alien planet, merrily kicking small monsters out of his way to the strains of Redbone's Come and Get Your Love.

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It is an irresistible scene, which tells us everything we need to know about Peter (or Starlord, as he prefers to be called). He hasn't grown up, because he hasn't needed to; he's Peter Pan, except that the whole universe serves as his Neverland, an arena where he can act out his boyish dreams.

Hovering between irony and sincere enthusiasm, the film is above all a triumph of tone. One big piece of the puzzle is the casting of Pratt, as breezy an actor as you can get. Best known for playing an amiable doofus on television's Parks and Recreation, he has slimmed down and shaped up in order to pass for a comic-book leading man – and yet he remains a pure goofball, working his eyebrows like Jack Black. He can't help being winning, which makes him perfect to play a jerk who doesn't have a mean bone in his body; Peter wouldn't hurt a fly, except from sheer thoughtlessness.

The plot involves Peter stumbling upon a MacGuffin, one of the Infinity Stones seen in previous instalments of the Marvel saga. This launches him on a chase across the galaxy along with various other rogues, including Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a deadly but alluring assassin with flaming hair and pistachio-green skin, and Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), a hulking warrior covered in red tribal tattoos as if his arteries were visible on the outside.

There's Rocket Raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper, a geneticallymodified, superintelligent critter who is, naturally, the real psycho of the group. Then there's Rocket's buddy Groot (Vin Diesel), a sad-eyed walking tree with a vocabulary of three words (“I am Groot”) who supplies sensitivity when he isn't unleashing the powers of a vengeful god.

These “heroes” could also be described as a bunch of homicidal lunatics, as Gunn gleefully reminds us whenever he gets a chance. Metaphorically speaking, the implication seems to be that inside every science-fiction fan there is an emotionally damaged eight-year-old – a fact presented as dismaying, touching and hilarious all at once.

It is no accident that Rocket resembles one of the furry stop-motion creatures from Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox; Guardians is like a stadium version of an Anderson movie, with misfit characters embarking on zany adventures in a universe sufficiently unreal to hint at genuine pain lurking beneath. Even the climactic orgy of destruction hurts a bit more than usual, precisely because everything happens in a context of blatant fantasy. It may no longer be shocking to see New York or San Francisco smashed to pieces – but who wouldn't feel a pang if bombs were falling on the Emerald City of Oz?